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AS PROMISED - SAMPLE CHAPTER FROM SCOTTISH MILITARY DISASTERS - > Book Extract

* He was an Eighteenth Century Scottish Forrest Gump - Stobo

** Here's one that combines Canadian and Scottish themes - Tunnelling for Victory

*** Those who enjoyed reading about the Royal Scots’ Armistice Day battle with the Bolsheviks in 1918might be interested in the same fight as seen from a Canadian viewpoint - Canada’s Winter War

***** Read about the blunder that made Canada an easy target for invasion from the United States - Undefended Border

****** Read about the Second World War's  Lord McHaw Haw                                                 

******* Serious questionmarks over the official version of one the British Army's most dearly held legends - The Real Mackay?

********** It's been a while since I posted a new article. This one's called Temptation

********** Read about how the most Highland of the Highland regiments during the Second World War fared in the Canadian Rockies - Drug Store Commandos.

************* We now have a  Guide to Scottish military museums on this site.  

************** Just weeks before the outbreak of the First World War one of Britain's most bitter enemies walked free from a Canadian jail  - Dynamite Dillon

*************** Click to read - - Victoria's Royal Canadians - about one of the more unusual of the British regiments.

*************** Read an article about the Royal Scots and their desperate fight against the Bolsheviks on Armistice Day 1918 - Forgotten War A second article, looks at the same battle but through a Canadian lens .

***************No-one has got back to me with a German source for the claim that the kilties during the First World War were known as The Ladies from Hell . See My Challenge to You

***************** A map showing the old Scottish regimental recruiting districts can now be seen by clicking Recruiting Area Map .

****************** The Fighting Men 1746  article now includes the estimated strengths of the Jacobite clan regiments which marched into England in 1745 See Clan Strengths

****************** **I've posted a fresh article - Scotland’s Forgotten Regiments. Guess what it's about.  

******************** The High Court Hearing in London in May 2012 attracted a lot of visitors to this site. See Batang Kali Revisited   

Chalky
I wonder if artillery gunners and bomber crews really chalked stuff on their munitions. Or was it all faked for the photographer? All those Kaiser or Hitler Special Delivery shells or bombs. Did people really bother? It's much the same when it comes to unit nicknames. All those Ladies from Hell, Devil Dogs or Green Devils. I have a feeling that enemy troops would not come up with awed descriptions of their opponents. I tracked down the term some German troops used for kilted regiments during the First World War. It wasn't exactly awe filled or respectful. It sounded like how German troops really would describe kilted soldiers and was more than somewhat disrespectful.

Privileged Science
I heard some on the BBC's Life Scientific which caused me concern. The programme profiles and interviews leading scientists. Two of the British women scientists on recently were privately educated. How many women in the UK are privately educated? Statistically, it's surely unlikely that even one privately educated woman would appear on the programme. What worried me was the possibility that opportunities in scientific research were heavily weighted in favour of those whose parents could afford to pay for private school. One of the women I heard went to a school that saw its mission as teaching Home Economics to create good little housewives. And yet it appeared that whatever job this woman wanted to try, doors were opened for her. I think Africa suffers badly due to lack of opportunity for youngsters whose parents are not rich. I worry that maybe perhaps a career in UK science is no longer a question of talent, but of parental income. That's something we can't afford.

Shameless Plug #9 - With Wellington was among the books recommended as an excellent Christmas present by the prestigious The Society for Army Historical Research. There was another mysterious surge in sales of With Wellington last summer. At the end of May it was the third best selling book about the Peninsular War on the website of one of Britain's biggest booksellers and Number Eighteen in the table for all Napoleonic books.  Last December's  sales surge turned out to be a combination of the venerable Scots Magazine declaring it Book of the Month in its January 2015 edition and a highly favourable review in the Napoleonic Association's newsletter. Scots Magazine's reviewer, nature writer and author, Jim Crumley, declared "I don't much care for military memoirs, but I could not put this one down". Other reviewers have been equally enthusiastic - "If you are interested in the memoirs of British soldiers in the Napoleonic Wars this book is a MUST!... You don't get many Napoleonic memoirs as good as this" and "It is the most candid memoir of the British Army I have ever read... does not pull any punches ... highly entertaining, but also thought provoking..." To have a look at the full reviews check out more about With Wellington  

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